


War of Attrition

by beachbby



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Keith dropped out of college lmao, Multi, he also has a criminal record, the Jeith is probably gonna be minor but we'll see, the paladins are an assassin group
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-06-25 13:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beachbby/pseuds/beachbby
Summary: Keith drops out of college and subsequently realizes that he now has nothing to do. So, naturally, he does what anyone in his position would normally do.He hires a deep web hitman on himself.Now he has a way to kill boredom, but also has to face the very real possibility that he may be murdered at any time.Oh well, at least it's better than actually finding a hobby or something stupid like that.





	1. Keith Makes a Questionable Life Decision

Honestly, dropping out of college was one of the most freeing experiences of his life. It was also one of the most surreal, he realized, halfway through the trip back to his house as he now remembered he had nothing else to do.

Huh, maybe he should’ve thought this one through.

He shook his head, hair tickling his forehead from where it was shoved into his helmet. He’d probably be able to scour the internet for something to do, that’s where people put job postings now, right? Worst comes to worst he could always get a job at the station where his dad worked, the guys there liked him well enough and he was relatively decent at lifting and carrying things. 

He wasn’t too fond of fire though, so that may be a limiting factor. 

The motorcycle rattled as the road shifted from asphalt to gravel and a grimace stole its way across his lips, knowing that it’d shift to plain dirt soon. 

At least it was peaceful with no distractions, unlike the campus that always seemed to be busy. It gave him the opportunity to think and he really needed that right now, because spending his days decaying in the house with nothing to do didn’t seem appealing at all. 

There was also always the possibility of going into the Air Force, the idea wormed its way into his brain and it wasn’t necessarily a bad one. Honestly the concept of piloting a plane was appealing but considering how much he hated the military academy his mom sent him to for high school it probably wasn’t too good of an idea. 

The road shifted again and he groaned when he felt more than saw the plume of dust blow out from behind the motorcycle. At least that meant he was close. With the house just starting to appear in the distance he spared a glance at his dash and snorted when he saw that the meter read 75 mph, thank fuck there weren’t any cops out this far. 

Could he be a cop? No, never, he’d definitely be bad at it. 

Almost on autopilot he pulled up to the house, putting the motorcycle in park and making sure to grab his bags before shuffling to the front door. He struggled with the keys for half a second before managing to find the right one, unlocking and pushing it open only to be met with a cloud of dust. 

He swore, coughing into his elbow and waving an arm around to try and dissipate it before he breathed in asbestos or some shit. This is what he got for not visiting in three months, a mouthful of dust and the underwhelmingly stale smell of disuse. 

Keeping his elbow tight over the bottom half of his face, he threw a few bags down onto the sofa and almost laughed at the way that threw another explosion of dust into the air. He shuffled into the kitchen, feeling lighter already as he shook out the thin curtains and checked to make sure no mice had raided the pantries. 

This house was small and definitely a fucking mess but he couldn’t bring himself to dislike it, especially when the mousetraps were clear and nothing looked chewed on. 

He moved back into the main part of the kitchen, flicking a light switch on and quirking his lips at the sound of the generator rattling to life in the back. Now that it looked a little less like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre set, he was able to start cleaning. Grabbing a rag from the sink he ran it under the faucet for a few seconds, ringing it out before moving back into the living room. 

Wiping down the tables was a pain but he’d have to do it eventually, and he preferred to have a clean desk space when he messed around on the internet. 

He managed to get the worst of the mess away and threw the washcloth down on one of the cleaned tables before starting on the task of getting the computer to work. 

His mom, bless her paranoid heart, had built them a pc by herself because she didn’t trust the major tech companies. It worked pretty decently, considering she’d just followed internet tutorials from her phone while building it. Sometimes though, like right now, he struggled with getting it to cough back to life after being powered down for so long. 

He ended up having to open the actual box and poke around in there for a few minutes before it managed to turn back on and thank God for that because he didn’t want to resort to having to search his phone for jobs. 

If you were to ask him he’d have no idea how they managed to get internet out here, but his mom definitely knew. 

His mom knew a lot of things that he didn’t and he was fine with that. 

Typing in the password (Password1) and pulling up a search engine resulted in him being sorely disappointed. There weren’t too many job opportunities in southern Arizona, it looked like. Shit.

The only ones looked like they were part time and for minimum wage, which wasn’t too bad for him because the mortgage on the house was already paid off but he was not about to stoop to making smoothies for a living. The other jobs posted were way too far out and he’d have to spend what looked like an hour driving to and from the places, gross. He’d probably spend more money on gas than was justified by the hourly rate. 

Maybe he could whip out his old grow light again and start selling weed like back at the military academy. 

Wait, why was he even looking for legal jobs?

That single question made him exit out of the search engine tabs and move to boot up Tor, triple checking that his VPN was working before starting down the first few Onion links. 

He had no idea what he’d find but maybe someone would put out a job offer for someone to peddle drugs or something, that seemed like the type of thing he’d find. Hell, if this didn’t work he could probably find some equally shady shit on Craigslist. 

Being a drug dealer was already interesting though. Selling things harder than weed or adderall would be an adventure too, maybe he’d finally be able to use that cool maroon bandana he bought from that weird senior that drank muscle milk during class. 

A few rabbit holes of links within links later he stumbled across a site that gave him pause. The site itself was dark, using only a few colors with red and white text, not too out of style for the deep web. The thing that made him wary was the fact that the page was captioned with “Hitman Network” followed by a few paragraphs summarizing the point of the site. 

Well that was, interesting, to say the least. 

Apparently it was a team of eight that worked in North America that was willing to kill any target that someone wanted, with a few stipulations. No top ten politicians and no kids under eighteen. 

An idea was forming in his head but when he saw the pricetag he grimaced. 15,000 USD was a lot, it kinda seemed like a scam if it cost that much. Well, maybe not necessarily a scam because killing someone probably wasn’t cheap, he meant that it seemed more along the lines of a way that the company tricked suburban wives into dropping insane amounts of cash to kill their husbands or something. The organization also, apparently, accepted Bitcoin but he had no idea what that was, and considering the conversion rate for 15,000 USD was 2.18 Bitcoins it was still too much. 

Still, curiosity getting the better of him, he clicked on the Bitcoin icon and was met with a pop-up. 

[Transfer 2.18 Bitcoin from Coinbase cache? Yes [-] No [-] ] 

What the fuck was Coinbase and why did he already apparently have a cache?

He clicked no, but minimized the screen and opened a surface web browser. Searching “Coinbase” brought him to the results page, which had a pre-selected purple link and his confusion only grew. 

As far as he knew, the only ones who went on this computer were him and his mom and he could’ve sworn she was overseas right now. 

He was prompted to log into the cache and he did the only thing he could think of. 

Huh, looked like the password for that was also Password1. 

He shook his head, whatever, that just made it easier for him. 

Squinting, he looked at the account balance and tried to make sense of what he was looking at. 157.4 Bitcoin in the cache already? What?

Maybe his mom did this? Shit he really needed to pay more attention to her rants about the state of the economy if that was the case. 

He rubbed at his temples and groaned out loud when the memory came back to him. 

Roughly five years ago, his mom coming back from a trip and calmly showing him how to mine Bitcoin and explaining to him why it was important and how it would be valuable one day. Damn, if he’d remembered that this thing existed he wouldn’t’ve even had to go to college in the first place. 

Goddamnit what was his mom even on to know that this existed in the first place? Scratch that, he didn’t wanna know. 

Three minutes of further research showed him that these things used to be dirt cheap compared to what they were now. 

So, technically, he could hire the hitman if he wanted to. 

Hmm. 

Okay he was getting a little bit ahead of himself here, time to calm down and grab some water. 

Trudging back to the kitchen he pulled a warm bottle of water out of the fridge that was desperately trying to cool itself down now that the generator was on (thankfully the water was the only thing in there) and moved to also grab a can of lukewarm desert ravioli from the pantry. Cracking the can open and throwing the cap in the trash, he fished a fork from the cabinet and stabbed one of the raviolis, grimacing at the texture as he chewed. 

There was something oddly surreal about eating room temperature ravioli straight from the can as you pondered the consequences of hiring a hitman on yourself, but such is the life of Keith Kogane. 

He did need something to do, playing a game of cat and mouse with a hitman was the type of thing that would keep him distracted until he died. Pretty morbid but the rush would definitely make up for it, and he’d hopefully be able to piss off the hitmen before they eventually got him. 

Midway through his musings his phone buzzed angrily from the other room and he flinched, setting down the can and praying that it wasn’t the FBI or something. 

He looked down, seeing the text notification and rolled his eyes. James. Barely better than the FBI trying to bust him for considering hiring a hitman on himself. 

The text message read out _”haha Keith you’re fuckin late to class lol. You scared to fail the exam next week??? haha.”_ He shot back a quick “I dropped out.” and waited the four seconds it usually took James to respond. 

_”You cunt, no you did not.”_

“I did and I spray painted over your tags by the paint rock before I left, eat shit James” He snorted, imagining the furious look that the guy was probably wearing. 

_”Fuck you dude, where the hell am I supposed to get that last baggie of Adderall now?”_

This was probably going to be the best part, he was pretty impressed that he’d managed to pull it off. “Check the front pocket of your backpack.” He set his phone back down as it vibrated with a quick _“wtf???”_ text and turned back to the webpage about the hitmen. 

If he was gonna do this he could use his mom’s guns. She kept them in the gun safe and called to tell him the password before she left a few weeks ago. Arizona gun laws were pretty lenient and they all had the proper paperwork, so it’d be fine. Probably.

His motorcycle was a problem though, it was under his name and the plate was too. Maybe the truck? He could always paint it a different color, but the plates for that were registered too. 

His phone vibrated again and an idea struck him. 

_”Did you fucking reverse pickpocket $70 worth of Adderall into my backpack??”_

“Yep. I need a favor.” One, two, three, fou- his phone cut him off with its buzzing and he smirked. 

_”Fuck offff, what do you need?”_

“I need a few of your fake plates so I can throw the hitman I’m hiring to kill me off my trail.” 

_”KEITH. Literally what the fuck, is this what you fucking dropped out for?”_

“No but I’m not going to ignore an opportunity like this. Do you have the plates?” 

_”Goddamn it, yes I have the plates. Pick them up tonight at my place tonight at nine, bring more Adderall”_ He sent back a smiley emote and turned his phone off, mentally making a checklist of things he’d need. 

He had guns, was going to get the plates, he’d need car paint and probably a few new knives. Maybe he could stop by the local tech store to see if there was anything interesting, they normally had a pretty good supply of stuff in general because of the Government presence in the area so it’d be a good idea to check. 

Most of his money was already cash because of the illegality of it all but cashing his debit card funds would be a good idea too. 

He could always make a pipe bomb to catch the hitman off guard the first time they pull up to the house. 

A gasp left his mouth, he needed burner phones. 

Mental checklist ready, he emptied his backpack (save for the extra Adderall for James) and grabbed the helmet before opening the door and starting towards the motorcycle. 

It only took him forty minutes to get back into town, and he immediately had to stop for gas because while it got good mileage, he lived way too far out of town limits for the bike to last that long. After that, he stopped by Walmart and bought four prepaid phones along with two Nokia flip phones, stopped by the hunting supply shop and bought a few extra knives (and one illegal switchblade that Ulaz had been far too enthusiastic to show to him but he was not about to complain because it was cool as fuck), popped by an auto body shop and bought black truck paint and stopped by his bank’s ATM to drain his debit card dry. 

He’d managed to get that far by twenty past eight so he let himself take it slow in the tech store and ended up splurging on some wires, cables, and a few magnetic GPS trackers and locators. 

Keith pulled up to James’ apartment ten minutes late and he made sure to put on his most unbothered expression simply because he knew it’d piss the guy off. 

Muscle memory led him towards James’ apartment door and it whipped open a split second before he was able to knock. James was flushed and angry looking, looking him up and down before gritting his teeth and hissing a short “get inside.” He just shrugged easily, stepping through the doorway and setting his backpack down on the clean countertop before rifling around for what he brought. 

It seemed like his roommate was out. Kinkade or something like that? Or was it Kincaid? He wasn’t even gonna try and guess the last names of the girls James knew, that was way too far out of his abilities. 

James was just pacing around the living room portion of his apartment, silent and stressed as he pulled out the Adderall. Keith looked over, holding up the baggie and watching as James sighed and moved to grab it. “You’re really going to hire a hitman on yourself?” He shrugged, nodding as James let out another ragged sigh, running fingers through his (messy, huh) hair. 

“Fuck, okay, sure yeah I’ll get the plates for you, follow me.” 

And he did. He trailed after James as he led him through his apartment and raised an eyebrow while the other rifled through a whole file cabinet of license plates. Damn, he had no idea where James got these but he seemed very efficient. 

“In-state or out of state plates?” The guy asked and he responded easily. 

“Two in-state and three out of state, do you have one from the east coast?” James nodded and pulled out the five he wanted. Two Arizona, one New York, one Alabama and one California. 

“Perfect, thanks.” He murmured, eyes trailing over the registration numbers. The answering silence made him pause and look up, eyebrow quirking when he saw the way James was holding himself. “You okay?” He asked, awkward and not really knowing what else to say. 

James ran another hand through his hair. “Listen, I know I’m a dick to you and you’re a dick back, but you know I don’t want you dead right?” He nodded, not really knowing where this was going. “Okay, so like, don’t get fucking murdered okay? It’d be weird if the jackass I’ve known since military academy died.” 

“I’m not really planning on it,” he admitted easily. “It’s more like something to do, a challenge I guess, I’m making sure the hitman isn’t going to have an easy time killing me.” James paused, staring him in the eyes for a brief moment before nodding. 

He felt a little bit thrown off. 

Before he realized what he was doing, he’d snatched a pen and paper off James’ desk and shoved it towards him. “I got burner phones and I’m planning on breaking my regular one, write your number down so I don’t lose it.” He honestly could have copied it down himself but he figured that James was the type of person to appreciate the gesture. 

James scribbled his number down, looked like he checked to make sure it was legible, and shoved it back into his hands. “If you die I’m gonna be pissed.” He nodded and was caught off guard, but not entirely surprised, when James grabbed his jacket, shoved him into the wall, and proceeded to smash his face into his in a way that could probably be considered a kiss. 

It was over just as quickly as it started, the other letting go and shoving him towards the front door of the apartment with a harsh “bye Kogane.” He barely managed to grab the rest of his stuff, pick up his backpack, and answer with a smug “fuck off Griffin” before he was kicked out. 

The door slammed behind him and the realization that this was probably the weirdest tuesday he’d had in a while dawned on him. 

He started back down to the parking lot and waved a goodbye to James’ older neighbor lady as she gave him an amused smile and wished him good luck with “the rowdy boy next door.” 

 

-

 

Driving back to the house in the dark was always surreal but the added knowledge that he was about to hire a hitman to try and kill him made it even more so. Well, that and the fact that James kissed him but that seemed a bit secondary in the grand scheme of life changing events. 

Asphalt shifted to gravel and gravel shifted to dirt and he was home, parked in the driveway with all his new shit. 

The first thing he did when he walked into the living room was slam his phone on the ground as hard as he possibly could, listening to the resounding shatter break the silence. 

Was it the safest and most effective way to break his phone? Probably not. Was it the most satisfying? Oh most definitely. 

He went into the kitchen and tossed his backpack down on the counter, grabbing the half eaten ravioli can from before and throwing it into the trash. The unopened bottle of water was still standing on the counter and he flicked the cap off, managing to down half the bottle before he had to come up for air. 

He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and laid out his new knives so he could clean them later. With that out of the way, he stumbled back to the couch, eyes tired as he stepped over his busted ass phone and booted the computer back up. 

The hitman site was still up, thank God, if he lost it after draining his back account and buying more knives than the last few hours would be for nothing. 

He clicked on the [Message] button near the lower left hand corner of the page and typed up a simple message to the site moderators. He gave a quick summary of what he wanted, for one of the better hitmen in the organization to be sent after a Keith Kogane and he figured that asking a question to double check that the organization was legitimate was reasonable. 

A chat box appeared as soon as he clicked the [send] button and he blinked, reading the notification with eyes that were way too fucking tired for the brightness he set the monitor at. 

[Your message has been received. Expect further messages in the near future. A notification will appear on the webpage, to avoid missing it, it is advised that you keep the site running.] 

The FBI was definitely going to come for his ass. “Keep the site running,” sounded shady as hell, at least he hired the hitman on himself and probably wouldn’t have to end up going to Federal prison because of it. 

He was honestly far too tired to care about that though and just snorted before laying down completely on the couch, punching one of the pillows in an attempt to fluff it before eventually passing out. He could figure out the rest of the game plan in the morning. 

 

-

 

A quick background check on the new hit that had been called in made him question why he did this job. The uninterested school yearbook photo of the guy they were supposed to assassinate was staring back at them and Shiro couldn't help the grimace that worked its way across his face. With the help of the background checks they did and the last bit of the morals they had, they refused to do hits on people under eighteen years old. 

Nineteen years was cutting it really close though. 

If they went through with it, this guy would be the youngest that their organization would kill. 

“Pidge, what do you think?” He ventured lightly, watching as the girl adjusted her glasses with a small frown.

“Well, realistically, we can’t refuse. He’s above the age margin and the person did say they were able to pay for the hit.” He nodded weakly, yeah that’s what he figured as well. He also noticed the way she ignored mentioning the person’s snide question about whether they were legit or not and he found himself mildly amused because of it. 

The sound of a door opening drew their attention to Lance and Hunk, both of them sauntering into the room with a box of their usual dozen donuts between them. It took Lance only a few moments to notice their expressions, a smirk stealing its way across his face, and Shiro immediately felt tired.

“That’s not a happy face. What? We get a hit that isn’t exactly as good and moral as they normally are?” Lance had a smile on his face that quickly shifted into gobsmacked horror when Pidge spoke up. 

“Yeah, some nineteen year old named “Keith Kogane” is the target this time. He’d be the youngest guy that we’ve gone after if we actually go through with killing him.”

Lance looked like his brain short circuited, but that wasn’t too out of character for him, what was a surprise was what he ended up saying. 

“That guy!? We went to high school at some military academy together! We had like every class with each other, he was always quiet as hell. He tried way too hard with the bad boy look.” Lance huffed, moving and putting a hand on the back of Shiro’s seat before leaning in to get a closer look at the screen. “We had this sort of rivalry, the guy was always trying to one-up me.” 

Pidge snorted, digging through the files she was ripping from Arizona police records. “He wasn’t faking the bad boy look, our target has two counts of aggravated assault and a couple of miscellaneous drug charges.” Lance choked on his spit and Shiro was just trying to focus. “Says here he only got out of prison time because of his status as a minor at the time.” 

“So we’re taking the hit?” Shiro found himself asking, working on memorizing the features of the face presented. Pidge shrugged, easy grin on her face as she answered.

“I dunno, it’s up to Allura if we take it or not but I’m feeling pretty good about this one. We can probably wrap it up in a week or two and take a vacation.” 

Hunk made an uneasy noise from where he was looking at another monitor, box of donuts discarded. “I don’t think we should do this one guys, says here his dad died when he was nine and his mom died when he was ten. It kinda feels like beating a dead horse.” 

“He’s an orphan?” Lance sounded confused as he peered at the files. “I never would’ve guessed but it kinda fits him.” 

Shiro shrugged, taking a look at the files and frowning when they honestly made no sense.

First off, his middle name was Yorak. Maybe eastern European? He had no idea but that was already a red flag. His mother's’ name was Krolia, which was even more ridiculous and he was sure that it was a Romanian thing (maybe Polish or Ukrainian? He’d look into it). Her file photo was extremely ethnically ambiguous though, which made it all even weirder. 

And his dad was _white_ , where the hell did the last name Kogane come from? It was _Japanese_. Him, out of all people, should know. 

The only other relation of note was a man named _Thace_ on his mother's side, which threw his theories about eastern Europe out the window because it sounded more like some sort of Hollywood Hills name. 

The more he dug the weirder it got.

Money was money though, and the buyer had specifically requested one of their better operatives to take Keith out. 

He just sighed and readied himself for when Allura would accept the hit and pick who was to go after the target. 

 

-

 

Keith woke up to the sound of the computer whirring back to life. That was not a good sign considering he wasn’t the one to turn it on.

He entered the password though, and saw the new chat box that had popped up on the hitman website. Shit, that wasn’t a weird dream. Okay.

[Transfer payment by clicking [Transfer] button. Once payment is received, the target will be tracked and neutralized. Transaction cannot be cancelled once funds are transferred. Any special execution methods can be implemented for an added price, the price range may vary based upon which method of execution is preferred. If the transaction is confirmed, a Hitman will be sent after Keith (Yorak) Kogane.] 

Yeah that was a little too real for him right now, he just woke up. 

The fact that they found his middle name already was unsettling, but whatever.

He sat up, stretched, got a coffee, came back and reread the message four times, went to repaint the truck, got another coffee, and transferred the bitcoins. 

The screen went blank for a few moments before another pop-up appeared. 

[The Black Paladin has been sent to neutralize the target.] 

For a brief moment he thought that that was a weird way for the site to word it. A quick scan of the website again showed that they ran under a system that referred to the hitmen as Paladins once cases were active. 

How strange, weren’t Paladins meant to be religious figures or knights or something? Why would they choose that to represent their hitman website? 

Oh well, at least it looked like he got the best Paladin. 

With that he drained the last of his coffee and went to go replace the license plates. 

He returned to find his (broken, but apparently not broken well enough as it was getting a phone call) phone vibrating on the ground. 

Tentatively he picked it up and blanched at the contact name, he was careful not to cut himself on the shattered glass as he answered the call. 

“Keith, what the hell?” His mom’s tired voice came through the speakers, sounding distorted. “Why am I missing fifteen thousand dollars worth of bitcoin?” He did not take into account that his mom would probably see the transaction.

“Sorry, I bought something with them.” Lying to his mom was something he absolutely could not do, he did it once and the disappointment had been overwhelming. 

She sighed, “alright, at least tell me before you make any transactions. That scared me at first until I remembered I told you about it.” 

“Sorry mom,” he murmured, feeling properly chastised. “It won’t happen again.”

A soft chuckle came from the phone, “Keith, it’s okay don’t worry about it. I’m in Mongolia right now so the connection is bad. I have to head back to work, see you later baby. Make sure you eat vegetables, too many granola bars can be bad for you.” They ended the conversation with mutual “I love yous” and Keith moved to pack up everything he’d need for the long run.

Staying here was probably a bad idea.

He cleaned the new knives, unlocked and emptied the contents of the gun safe into a duffle bag (where the fuck did his mom get a missile launcher? He hadn’t even been able to fit it anywhere so he’d just left it there), packed up a few things from the pantry, grabbed other miscellaneous items from around the house that he figured might be useful and made sure to pack extra clothes before shoving everything into the passenger's side of the truck. 

He’d found an old wooden board that served as a good enough ramp to get the motorcycle into the back of the still-drying truck and threw his helmet next to it because there was now a distinct lack of space inside the actual truck. 

There was one more thing he needed to do though. 

Making a pipe bomb wasn’t too hard, setting it up so it would get triggered by someone driving over a certain portion of the dirt road was.

It honestly wasn’t a bomb at this point, it was a landmine, but he wasn’t here to play fair.

He made sure to leave a flowery note taped to the front door just in case the hitman, excuse him, _Paladin_ made it past the first trap. 

Right before he headed out he grabbed his busted phone again and threw it off a nearby cliff face. Nice. 

Pulling the car out of the driveway, he made sure to go offroad and drive around where he’d set up the landmine. The truck rattled the smallest bit as he started towards town, but a brief sense of satisfaction filled him.

This was so much better than listening to Iverson talk about how he would deduct a letter from their grade for every day they were absent.


	2. Keith Narrowly Escapes a Jehovahs Witness

When Allura laughed in his face and told him that he’d be the one that she was going to send after the Kogane kid, he’d figured she was joking. Maybe her and Romelle hanging out and going to more coffee shops together had ended up rubbing off on her personality or something. 

That was not the case. 

“I can hear you frowning over the mic, Shiro.” Pidge’s voice sounded through the communicator, tinny but with an unwavering connection. “Sounds like someone’s gotten lazy. It’s not everyday when someone asks for the best hitman though, so you should at least feel a little bit honored.” That wasn’t really the reason, he sighed.

“It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s more that I don’t feel all that comfortable being the one to kill the youngest person we’ve been called for.” It made him feel almost as bad as the Galra Agency, but still not quite at their level of degeneracy yet.

Pidge made a thoughtful noise, he had a mental picture of her sitting in her techie seat hunched over her computer as she did. “Yeah I can see where you’re coming from. I don’t think I’d be all that comfortable doing it either. But we already accepted cash from whoever wants the guy out, so we can’t really back out of the agreement now.” She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

He focused on the road, hearing her move from the mic to yell at Lance over something mundane. He always hated whenever there was a moral issue with a hit, considering it wasn’t even like he had that many morals to begin with. It just made everything more complicated. 

A grimace crossed his face when the road shifted from asphalt to gravel, if it messed up his paint job he was going to make Allura pay to get it fixed. 

So far he’d been driving for what felt like hours. The Kogane kid lived pretty far out, huh? 

At least Arizona looked visually stunning, traveling down from California for a hit was always nice. 

He zoned out for a bit, hearing the faint sounds of Pidge typing on her keyboard as the radio droned on and on about politicians he didn’t care about. 

Everything was going smoothly until the road shifted over to dirt and he saw something he’d consider suspicious. After doing volunteer work in Israel for his thesis back in college, he’d become pretty adept at being able to tell when there was a landmine buried underneath a portion of the road. Putting the car in park, he rolled down the window and poked his head out to try and get a better look.

The thing is, with landmines, you can’t bury them too deeply or else the mechanism won’t work. This resulted in half-visible mines that would definitely get activated if someone who didn’t know anything about identifying them drove over it.

“Why’d you stop the car?” Pidge asked from the mic and he looked at the offending landmine with dismay.

“I’m pretty sure there’s a landmine in the middle of this road.” There was a brief period of silence on her end and he heard Lance and Allura’s faint voices in the background.

“A landmine?” She sounded just as confused as he felt. “What are you gonna do about it?” 

“Not drive over it.” Lance barked out a laugh in the background and he realized Pidge had probably gerryrigged a speakerphone setting for them to hear what was going on. “I’m planning on backing up and throwing something at it just to set it off and be done with it. I don’t want to come back this way when I’m done and run over it because I forgot.” 

There was a brief period of silence over the mic before Romelle’s voice came in directly to his ear, too breathy and loud like she’d placed the fuzzy bit right on top of her mouth. “That is a terrible idea.” He couldn’t disagree with her on that one, but he was going to take the risk.

“If our mark placed it then it probably won’t even work, even if it does it’ll most likely be a small explosion that’ll cause no real damage.” He began reversing the car, a good forty feet or so, to make sure it wouldn’t get too messed up in the case it actually worked. 

Honestly he’d probably be more offended if it didn’t work, some punk-ass kid making an unuseable landmine to try and get him was exactly the sort of thing Pidge and Lance would make fun of him for for months. 

Speaking of that, why was there even a landmine here in the first place? Was the kid just paranoid or did he find out somehow? If he was just like that then maybe it wasn’t so weird that someone called a hit on him, weird people tended to attract weird situations. That was definitely some food for thought that he’d think more on once this whole situation was over.

Parking the car, he got out, hearing Pidge sigh over the mic. Looks like she’d gotten it back. “Shiro, you are twenty-six years old and the most irresponsible person in this organization besides Lance.” He took offence to that. “Make sure you don’t seriously get hurt, some random dude probably can’t make an effective bomb but the shrapnel can still be dangerous.” He nodded absently, more of a reflex than to actually confirm anything. 

Reaching down, he grabbed one of the rocks that were absolutely everywhere and backed up, raising his prosthetic and taking aim. 

He threw it, low to the ground to make sure it jostled the landmine just right. 

 

-

 

To say he panicked when the landmine erupted would be an overstatement, but he was caught off guard at the size of the resulting explosion.

His ears rang a bit (actually, it kinda hurt) and he smacked the side of his head that wasn’t holding the earpiece in an attempt to stop it. 

Pidge was yelling at him. 

“Shiro what the fuck!? Are you okay!? You’re such an idiot, goddamn, we told you not to explode it!” She sounded panicked and the ringing was clearing up. His cheek stung from where a rock shard had scraped against it though.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.” He soothed, eyeing the crater that was now in the middle of the path. “An interesting fact about our mark is that he can make incredibly effective landmines, or at least knows where to buy them.” Pidge let out a growl over the mic.

“You’re gonna give me gray hairs at this rate. If someone other than you acted this blase about letting off a landmine on a mission, you’d be so peeved.” Yeah that was fair, if he was being honest it would take something insane to make him react with anything other than acceptance. He glanced over at his car and his jaw dropped.

Fuck, his poor paint job, and his bumper looked like it suffered too.

“Do you think I can write off my car repairs?” He muttered to himself and bristled when he heard Pidge snort.

“Of course the black lion suffers.” She cooed, now sounding like she was getting far too much enjoyment out of this. “Poor little lady, what did you do to her this time?” It was obvious Pidge was just mad that she only had a green moped.

He rolled his eyes and started back to where the car was idling, managing to seem pissed despite being inanimate. Patting the door, he murmured an apology before getting back in and reversing a bit more. 

He went the smallest bit off the dirt trail to avoid the worst of the crater and continued down the road. 

Finally, after what felt like far too long, he pulled up the lonely driveway to the small shack-like house. “I’m here,” he stated out loud, hearing Pidge as she began typing again. His hand hovered over his concealed carry. 

The risky thing about hits that involved people who were far out was that they tended to be far wilier than people who lived in suburbs. 

It was also more suspicious when you pulled up their long driveway, those types of people never seemed to get too many visitors. 

Dusting off his turtleneck, he reached for the bible in the passenger's seat and mentally prepared his lines. 

_“Hello sir! Can I interest you in an organization that I think you’re the perfect fit for?”_ Then bam! Whip out the gun and get it done right there, isolated places like this made it so he could be messier with elimination tactics.

He grabbed the crucifix off his rear view mirror and put it on, leaving his car idling. 

The walk up was nothing special, the steps creaking so loudly he was half afraid they’d break as he eased his way up them. 

Hand inches away from the door, he was about to knock when a note caught his eye.

 _“Have fun trying to find me. Asshole.”_ Signed with a heart. 

He bit his cheek to keep himself in check, not really comprehending the emotion he was feeling right now. 

Pidge must’ve picked up on something because she asked a quick “what’s wrong?” over the mic.

“I think the guy knew we were coming.” He said, voice flat as he heard her groan over the line. 

“Ughhh, I try so hard to make sure the network is secure and it got out!? Jesus, it has to be a human error or something. God, I’m gonna be tearing through this code for hours now.” She whined as Takashi began to muscle his way through the lock. 

Forgoing the traditional, i.e. Hunk, route of lockpicking, he just kicked the door open. 

The trick to it was to aim for the side of the door that had the lock on it and it would come down almost one hundred percent of the time, unless it was metal. In that case it might take a few tries.

A plume of dust immediately hit him and he groaned, waving his hand to dissipate it. Looking around, he grimaced. The place was tiny, not many secrets to hide. 

He still looked though, hopefully he’d be able to extrapolate where the asshole was through details he found. Nothing really stood out to him as he moved through the house, the only thing being a small pile of glass shards that he made note of. 

“Pidge, start tracking the guy’s debit card information. We’re gonna have to use that to find him.” 

 

-

 

Sometimes he had to wonder why a hunting supply store carried things like silencers and AR-15s and illegal switchblades, but he wasn’t about to complain. 

Besides, Ulaz was nice and used to babysit him when he was younger. 

The man smiled, small and wry, when he asked to buy a few silencers. His grin became even more sharklike when Keith paid for it in cash.

See? This was why he loved Ulaz, guy was hilarious and never asked any questions. 

“Your mother called me last night,” the man began the conversation with a non-sequitur. “Said something about you using bitcoin to buy something.” To anyone else, it would seem like he was being put on the spot and borderline interrogated. Ulaz just had one of those faces, but Keith knew better. 

“Just one of those Russian mail order brides-” Ulaz blew some air out of his nose at that one, so he’d consider it a success. “-I’m legally obligated to protect her with my life now.” 

“Alright, alright, you’re sounding like Thace right about now.” And now Ulaz was going all mushy, gross. The man’s eyes softened the smallest bit and now Keith was in the danger zone because Ulaz was about to start waxing poetic about his uncle’s arms. 

“I didn’t know you were Russian.” He deadpanned and hid his grin at the way Ulaz’s lips thinned in distaste. 

“Keith, you cannot joke to people with Czechoslovakian ancestry about being Russian.” Ulaz said, now solemn. “It is distasteful.” Europe’s hatred for itself was hilarious.

He glanced at the clock behind the counter, tastefully covered by metal bars for whatever reason, and grimaced at the time. 

“I’m sorry to cut you off in your rant about Russia, but I have to go somewhere.” Ulaz nodded, handing him his change back (basically all of it, he got the 80% “your uncle is dating the store-owner” discount) and giving him another small smile as he went to leave.

“Make sure you keep that mail order bride safe, post pictures to Facebook.” He struggled to figure out whether or not that was sarcastic and ended up just waving his own goodbye. 

In all honesty, he didn’t know what to do next. He’d pretty much stocked up as well as he could, and was unwilling to go back to his place to see if it’d been visited yet. 

He made the executive decision to loiter around the strip mall for a while. 

Eyeing his motorcycle to make sure it was still intact (couldn’t trust those goddamn Arizona meth heads) he started down the sidewalk. 

This part of town was weirdly shitty but the hole-in-the-wall restaurants tended to be pretty decent. 

Thirty minutes of doing absolutely nothing but wander around passed and he realized just how far away from the hunting supply place when he saw his bank. He glanced over towards the front, reminiscing a time when he could use his debit card without attracting a hitman, and blinked when he saw an oddly nice Cadillac pull into the parking lot. 

It had a significantly nicer paint job than his own shittily done truck that he honestly probably should’ve spent more time on. 

He blinked when the driver left the car. All black clothes? In Arizona? 

Something was off here, he made sure to eye the license plate as soon as he caught sight of the tinted windows. 

Pausing long enough to do that was his first mistake.

His second mistake was not immediately sprinting when he saw the driver stop in his tracks the instant they locked eyes. 

His third mistake was not making a beeline towards his motorcycle and instead choosing to run further away, towards the corner of the strip mall instead of towards the side.

The man let out a sharp “hey!” and he fucking booked it towards the pawn shop. Whatever happened, he could trust Rolo to fix his mess afterwards. 

The sound of his feet slamming into the concrete as he sprinted was not a new one, but the sensation of feeling part of a pillar explode right next to him while he was running was. So the guy wasn’t afraid to shoot in public, huh? 

He slammed the pawn shop door open, hearing the bell ring and feeling his breath stutter when he saw Nyma at the counter instead. Well, Rolo was just going to have to cover for him.

Running through the shop, he ignored her yelling and he felt his heart stutter when the door slammed open a second time. Shoving his way through the aisles, he cursed Rolo for not being able to fucking clean the place and for somehow making the aisles thin enough that he had to turn sideways to get through them.

Staggering out the other end, he looked back, a dismayed laugh leaving him when he saw the hitman struggling to get through the aisle as well. They locked eyes for half a second that felt like years and Keith was jarred back into reality when he saw the way the man was reaching for something. 

He looked, eyes landing on something that made him grin, the adrenaline making his hands shake. 

Grabbing a metal pole, he pulled down an entire display rack and threw it across the exit of the aisle, making a run to the backdoor when he heard the hitman curse. 

_His voice is deep,_ he thought mildly, throwing the door open and sprinting through the backlot. 

He managed to get about halfway back to the hunting store when he heard harsh yelling and immediately forced himself to speed up.

Adrenaline was a hell of a thing. 

Finally seeing a break in the buildings, he flew down an alleyway and almost automatically felt more in danger. Goddamn there was just something about the sensation of being in an alleyway that made his skin prickle. Fuck, he had to get to the front of the strip mall somehow. 

It was the home stretch, running through that alleyway and avoiding the suspicious black trash bags that littered it. Breaking through to the front, he immediately felt lighter, like he could breathe better. Turning sharply, he jogged a few more feet before dipping into one of the miscellaneous shops. 

Stumbling in, he forced himself to look casual, despite sweating and breathing far heavier than anyone in a pet store had a right to be doing. One of the parrots made an affronted sound and he waved his hand at it, making odd eye contact with the poor employee who (probably) had no idea what was going on. 

Forcing himself to seem interested in hamster food, he browsed the aisles, fingers shaking when the adrenaline began seeping out of him. 

Half a minute later when he saw the hitman sprint by the storefront window, he had to bite his lip from laughing hysterically. The employee made a confused sound, probably connecting the two running guys together. He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking about, but he definitely wasn’t about to ask. 

Deciding to wait for the better part of an hour, he ended up leaving without buying anything, waving at the parrot again before heading out. 

The Arizona heat hit him immediately and he missed the artificial chill of the air conditioning already. 

Walking towards his motorcycle, he made himself run through the guy’s features in an attempt to commit them to memory, as well as double and triple checking that he remembered the plate number. 

Looks like the game just got a lot more interesting.

 

-

 

Takashi was pretty pissed off. Embarrassed too, but mostly just pissed off. 

“How the hell did I manage to lose him?” He grit his teeth and Pidge, like the nice, kind, gentle girl she was, deigned to give him an answer. 

“Because you weren’t ready for it, also because he seems like he’s insane.” She quipped, typing aggressively. “Allura thought it was pretty funny and told me to wish you luck.” Of course she did.

He breathed in deeply and let out a harsh sigh. 

It wasn’t everyday when you find your mark on the first day, especially one as flighty as Kogane, and somehow manage to lose them in the process. No wonder someone hired the best, fuck, he’d’ve wanted to hire the best person to take care of Kogane too. 

He began mentally mapping a plan, fingers gripping the steering wheel as Pidge combed through local motel check-in records. If he was honest, he had no idea how their group had managed to get anything done before she joined their roster. He wasn’t even sure how she was able to tear into private records that fast, it was definitely just as scary a concept as someone being hired to kill someone else was. 

Well, at least now he had a baseline to go off of instead of going in dark. 

After today’s fiasco, he was almost desperate to get Kogane just to prove that he was able to. 

 

-

 

When she’d first told him that she was going to work part-time at the DMV, Keith laughed for a good twenty minutes. Who could have guessed that Acxa’s job would’ve ended up helping him out this much?

He strode into the place like he owned it and made immediate eye contact with her from where she sat at the front desk. 

The instant relief he could see in the set of her shoulders was more sad than inviting. Thank fuck he didn’t work in customer service. 

Her face was still a bit guarded, but quietly encouraging and he found a small smile on his face instead of the normal dry expression he knew he wore. For once, there wasn’t a line and he walked straight up to her desk, watching her expression shift to amused. 

“And what do you need help with today, sir?” She asked, tone teasing (by her standards) and he rolled his eyes. 

“Do you think, theoretically, if I gave you a plate number, you could tell me the information about the person who it is?” Her expression shifted yet again, an open (again, by her standards) sort of confusion on her face that he was only able to get when he actually surprised her.

“Normally no, but for you, yes.” She said, no-nonsense as she began typing. “Can I ask what happened?”

Honesty was the best policy with a girl like Acxa. She may not look like it in her work clothes, but she was able to sniff out bullshit and beat the fuck out of you for lying to her. 

“I hired a hitman on myself and I got his plate number.” He said, tone even enough that Acxa’s coworker snorted like he thought it was a joke. She raised an eyebrow and waved that same coworker away to take his lunch break as he chuckled, muttering about getting the hint and giving them privacy. 

“Keith fucking Kogane, are you serious?” She hissed, annoyed, and he couldn’t help but poke the bear a bit more.

“Of course, this guy just cut me off on the highway.” She rolled her eyes, huffing out a breath as her typing became more intense.

“I swear, ever since senior year you’ve been crazy.” A small grin crept onto his face. “First you get assault charges and then you hire a hitman on yourself. Bit of a jump, don’t you think?” The more she spoke the more amused by the whole situation she seemed to get, becoming a bit less icy as time went on. 

He hummed in response, reciting the plate number when she prompted him to. 

Then together, for the next fifteen minutes, the two of them learned all they could about a Mr. Takashi Shirogane. 

He left the DMV feeling a lot lighter, and with a new sticky note with Acxa’s number to match the one he’d gotten from James.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to be so good at updating but now im so goddamn bad at it that it makes my head hurt lmfao its so sad. 
> 
> I'm so close to being done with the new crisis averted chapter that I can literally taste it and I'm so depserate to get it done aaaa
> 
> Also I love Acxa and if anyone comes for her I'm gonna be angery >:( 
> 
> You can probably tell that I think people being extremely blase about dangerous situations is hilarious, which it is
> 
> Yell @ me on tumblr!: bbbeachbabe

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been kicking around since A WEEK AFTER SEASON ONE AIRED and I finally wrote it all in one sitting, go d bless/
> 
> It's inspired by that one hitman story thats been kicking around on the ///deep web/// theorist side of youtube and it contained such BDE and keith vibes that its haunted me for years
> 
> I loved the new season btw, but I wrote James before it came out so he might be OOC but who cares hes a minor character anyway lmao (me, I care bc I lvoe him)
> 
> Also sorry if you follow my BNHA fics, I realized that writing the same characters over and over was what was killing any inspiration. I used to be able to finish chapters in single sittings and now I struggle to complete them at all. Writing this was really refreshing so hopefully it can keep the energy/insp going because im almost done with a new Villain au chapter ;3c


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